Bruneian Dollar

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Making a million is an idea that appeals to us all, be that a million dollars, pounds, yen or whatever currency your country uses. But unless you’re currency is practically worthless it’s not an easy task.

In fact, making a million is a bit like eating an elephant, it’s a hugely daunting task, but if you’ve ever heard anyone ask:

How do you eat an elephant?

Then you’ll know that the answer is: one bite at a time.

So how does eating an elephant help you make a million dollars?

Well here’s an approach that seems to have worked for Warren Buffett. For those that don’t know of him, he is one of the richest men in the world, with an estimated wealth of $47 Billion dollars in 2010. In other words, for those of you wondering how many millions make a billion, Warren Buffett has made a million dollars 47,000 times over!

According to the biography of Warren Buffett (The Snowball by Alice Schroeder, an excellent book that anyone wanting to make a million and become financially free should read), Buffett’s inspiration for making his first million came from an old book called One Thousand Ways To Make $1,000. As Buffett is a bit of maths whizz he instantly recognised that the title meant that the book explained how to make a million dollars.

The genius of the book however is that instead of trying to make a million dollars in one go (which is hard) it was approaching the task in steps – one bite at a time! The goal of each step being to make $1,000. Do that one thousand times and you would have made a million dollars (or pounds for us Brits).

Warren Buffett’s understanding of mathematics also helped him realise that when it comes to how to make a million quick, it’s much easier to start with money to invest than it is to start from nothing. In other words he realised that by re-investing every cent, dollar or pound that he made from his businesses into growing the businesses or starting a new business he would make more money faster. In short he recognised that a dollar today, could be worth ten dollars in a year’s time, so he was very frugal, spending as little as possible in order to re-invest everything.

As he’s now made not just a million dollars, but 47,000 of them it’s hard to argue against his approach!

How to make millions with your ideas?

So what if you already have a business, a business idea or a product? Well there’s no reason that the one thousand steps all have to be unique. In fact if you’ve got a product that sells for one thousand dollars and you can sell a thousand or more of them, then just do it! That’s what running a successful business is all about.

If you haven’t then make what you can off each idea and when it’s exhausted move on to the next business idea.